[Ultra Tech] Non-lethal warfare at TL9

[seasalt]

So one concept a friend of mine came up with was a twist on a traditional sci-fi military campaign, in that it takes place in a setting where the value of human lives is considered very high compared to modern earth, on all sides of the conflict.

To be clear, this isn't an idea of some completely pacifistic utopia. Violence and the use of force per se is not considered inherently wrong. States and other groups still attempt to impose their will upon others by force. Wars and violent crime are far from unheard of. It's just the act of intentionally killing others which is taboo.

And, to clarify further, this isn't a setting where the taboo on killing is absolute or taken to absurd degrees. In any kind of military operation, it's inevitable that there will be a few deaths due to accidents, even if there isn't any combat at all. A single death in combat isn't considered grounds for calling off an entire war or an immediate ceasefire. The military forces involved and the societies behind them still have a concept of "acceptable losses", it's just that...
1) that number is much lower than ours, to the degree that KIA numbers hitting the triple digits will quickly produce pressure for peace talks, and
2) the lives of the enemy are not considered more expendable than the lives of one's own troops.

With that in mind, what kind of weapons and military forces (using the Ultra Tech book as a baseline rather than trying to re-invent the wheel) would a TL 9 society use? First, a few more ground rules on how warfare is viewed in such a setting:

• Intentionally sending one's own soldiers to take actions that are certain or very likely to result in their deaths places moral culpability on you, their commander, not on the enemy. You can't order your men to throw their bodies in the paths of the enemy's vehicles or anything of the sort - doing so would seen as murder of your own soldiers.
• Tricking the enemy into killing your own soldiers by disguising them as robots or mixing them in among unpiloted vehicles without clearly marking them is likewise considered to be murderous disregard for the lives of one's own troops.
• Causing permanent or debilitating injuries intentionally is, although still more acceptable than killing, considered to be a last resort which should only be done when an enemy can't be neutralized in any other way.
• Destruction of civilian property is also seen as a crime, BUT is acceptable if it is absolutely militarily necessary. Attacking a building being used as a fighting position or a factory producing weapons would be acceptable, destroying enemy power stations or food supplies would not be.

Of course, this leaves a MASSIVE amount of grey areas, and navigating those grey areas would be a major part of any strategy. Is placing your human soldiers too close to a robotic tank that might produce shrapnel if it's blown up criminal disregard for their lives? Sure, the enemy shouldn't shoot it with an ATGM if there are infantry standing next to it, but the tank has a higher profile; what if they other side didn't see your guys standing there? Maybe there's a less hazardous alternative to knocking out such tanks - but what if it's ineffective? What if risking a few lives is the difference between freedom and subjugation and exploitation?

Anyway - my thoughts are that the most effective thing to do would be to combine a mix of human soldiers and piloted vehicles, and robotic drones. If you use only drones, you're giving your enemy free reign to use their most lethal and destructive weapons indiscriminately, while your bots will have to have 'nerfed' weapons that are less effective, especially since robots are less capable of dealing with the nuances of incapacitating an enemy soldier. But, if you use only humans/piloted craft and no drones, you're giving the enemy license to focus completely on non-lethal incapacitating weapons and giving him no choice but to retreat when robotic platforms show up en-masse. I imagine that the reasoning of fielding living soldiers to force the enemy to limit their options is a bit taboo to discuss, but engaged in universally. That being said, attempts to exploit this that seem too blatant - such as, for example, putting pilots in small, low-altitude aircraft or flight systems that are almost certain to crash fatally if they get hit at all - will be rejected, first of all by the troops being ordered to use them.

Which weapons would be best for destroying an armored fighting vehicle like a tank without killing the crew - bearing in mind that such a vehicle will be designed to offer maximum protection and survivability to that crew in the case of attack? If we're sticking to rules as written, it seems like the best weapons would be small-caliber shaped charge projectiles designed to be used from close range, specifically targeting the tracks/drive system and weapon turrets, using the minimum amount of force to breach through the armor and accepting that multiple hits will probably be required to disable the target fully, so long as it lessens the risk of killing the crew.

For infantry soldiers, it's much trickier. If they're covered in fully enclosed body armor such as a "combat hardsuit" from Ultra-Tech, most of the non-lethal weapons listed in the book will be useless. How do you handle them? One option is for your own armored soldiers to engage in in hand-to-hand combat and wrestle them into submission. And indeed, I'd imagine that would be a pretty common tactic... buut that'll only work if the enemy can't figure out a way to neutralize you at range.

Robots could likewise rush forward and aggressively grapple the enemy - but those are something they're allowed to shoot with armor-piercing bullets.

"Glue guns" and other weapons designed to entrap and restrain enemy soldiers would have their place, but if that's the only thing you're using, the enemy will be well-equipped with countermeasures - every soldier will be carrying glue-dissolving spray.

How about impact weapons like the "memory plastic baton" ammo in the book, designed to knock the target on his ass without penetrating the armor? That's a good start but likely to cause debilitating spinal or brain damage if the effect is just a little too strong, and, from a tactical standpoint, such "nerf" rounds will have a very short effective range and be useless beyond it.

I think that you might actually need to use some lethal-ish weapons. I can't see how to stop a man in a combat hardsuit at range without something that will penetrate through the armor and cause injury, and the laws of war would recognize that sometimes it's necessary. Something might be used like a liquid propellant 5.7mm gatling carbine firing armor-piercing discarding sabot rounds. That sounds pretty lethal - but, this is 4d6+8 small piercing damage (counting the liquid propellant bonus) going up against DR 25 (factoring in the armor divisor). If you rolled four 6s as the damage, you would still only inflict 4 points of damage to the person hit due to the wounding modifier for small piercing. Since these suits would be loaded up with life-saving systems to stabilize the user if they're wounded, this makes it unlikely they'll die, especially since it'd be very rare for soldiers to keep fighting after taking a wound, but...

The problem is if one of these rounds hits the helmet and goes into the skull hit location. Then it's going against DR 15 (after armor divisor and adding the skull itself)... which means a good damage roll of all fours will deal 36 damage and is likely to kill the target. So you can see how tough this situation is. Perhaps a very small caliber single-shot rifle designed to only be used with aimed shots at the arms and legs could be a solution?

[mr beer]

I think in such a situation, almost all combat would be done remotely, with precious heavily protected infantry + manned vehicles only deployed when an objective has been sufficiently 'softened' up by artillery/missiles or already captured by robotic troops. Or maybe almost all warfare is covert, using economic warfare, spies, assassins, covert warfare, strategic hits etc. with no-one wanting to risk escalation into a hot war.

You might want to consider why human life is held so dearly. Perhaps fertility is at an all-time low coupled with effective life extension technology. So people live to 300 years old but seldom have children? Something like that.

[Pursuivant]

Lots of electrolasers, sleep gas and tangler munitions where human vs. human combat is expected.

Far fewer large area of effect explosive weapons. No indiscriminately targeted weapons like mines - unless they're stun or capture mines.

Depending on the level of medical technology available weapons that "temporarily maim" targets might be acceptable. E.g., blinding lasers are acceptable if blindness can be repaired with surgery or cyberware.

If you want to really limit casualties, restrict war to online VR settings with AI computers acting as referees. Alternately, make war similar to low TL ritual combat where impressive threat displays, counting coup, first blood and wins in champions duels are more important than actual combat.

Since the whole premise is "war on the honor system" where everyone has to overcome basic human instincts and play by strict rules the entire culture has to have a deep and instinctive respect for life (at least human life). Maybe humans get rewired to behave more like pure predators where intimidation displays are sufficient to settle most issues. Maybe benevolent AI computers run things and have decided that controlled inter-group violence is a healthy part of East African Savanna Ape colony management, but it shouldn't be allowed to get out of hand.

[Fred Brackin]

The thing that occurs to me after a little contemplation is a sort of "passive aggressive" defense model.

For example, you place minefields of escalating lethality in front of some position that your strategy says you must hold. Then you put warning signs. Then it becomes your enemy's fault if he sends troops into your minefield to clear it.

You could hit that triple digit figure of unsustainable losses pretty quickly.

[seasalt]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Lots of electrolasers, sleep gas and tangler munitions where human vs. human combat is expected.

...

Depending on the level of medical technology available weapons that "temporarily maim" targets might be acceptable. E.g., blinding lasers are acceptable if blindness can be repaired with surgery or cyberware.

If you want to really limit casualties, restrict war to online VR settings with AI computers acting as referees. Alternately, make war similar to low TL ritual combat where impressive threat displays, counting coup, first blood and wins in champions duels are more important than actual combat.

Combat hardsuits make electrolasers, sleep gas, and blinding lasers useless.

As for using entirely drones or restricting it to VR or some kind of extreme sports - I see that as a non-viable solution, because inevitably, one side will accuse the other of cheating, and you'll be right back to fighting for real. I imagine that in a conflict with serious stakes, a lot of the soldiers (and indeed, commanders) actually do want to kill whoever they're fighting against - it's just that the majority population, nationally and globally, doesn't accept such measures.

And yes, this unstable equilibrium applies to the whole setting - it's ripe for someone to eventually just throw out the whole rulebook. But that's a much greater escalation than just moving to using real physical force.

Likewise, in a TL9 society (I chose that TL for a reason), fielding military forces of nothing but robots is prohibitively expensive and carries steep downsides.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

The thing that occurs to me after a little contemplation is a sort of "passive aggressive" defense model.

For example, you place minefields of escalating lethality in front of some position that your strategy says you must hold. Then you put warning signs. Then it becomes your enemy's fault if he sends troops into your minefield to clear it.

You could hit that triple digit figure of unsustainable losses pretty quickly.

That's an interesting concept. But I think that in a society where dying in warfare is not normalized, soldiers might not be willing to enter a clearly marked minefield at all. In real warfare, you know that if your side loses, it's very likely you'll be killed anyway. But in this case there is less incentive to take on such a dangerous mission. I'm sure you'd get some macho guys volunteering to do it, but not the whole force.

And besides, minefields need to be covered by fire to be effective, so you still need defending troops with ranged weapons.

On the other hand - in a very casualty averse society it might very well be that "war" is basically a competitive mineclearing contest where both sides mostly just build and attack battlefield obstacles and avoid engaging eachother directly.

Will respond to some of the others later on.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by seasalt

Combat hardsuits make electrolasers, sleep gas, and blinding lasers useless.

And putting retractable superfine blades (treat as Spines, B88, but with cutting damage at +2 damage and AD (2) for being Superfine; that works out to 1d(2) cut) on such will probably shred tanglers in short order (I'd say use tangler dissolving spray or just a few layers of reactive armor paste with detonators, but both of those are apparently TL10; I'm not sure what one does to free a captive of tanglers at TL9, unless it's expected you'll have to just hack away at it). Non-lethal weapons are typically a lot easier to defend against than lethal ones, and if you make all your soldiers functionally immune to them, you're basically leaving OpFor no choice but to go with lethal methods. That or battles basically just wind up with everyone wrestling each other until one side gives up. Even sonic nauseators, which have the advantage of ignoring DR, should be readily blockable with special noise-canceling earpieces (they don't work against people who can't hear them).

Originally Posted by seasalt

I imagine that in a conflict with serious stakes, a lot of the soldiers (and indeed, commanders) actually do want to kill whoever they're fighting against - it's just that the majority population, nationally and globally, doesn't accept such measures.

... do they? They come from a society that is so opposed to killing that they specifically avoid it as much as possible in warfare of all places, so why would their soldiers be cavalier about killing? Sure, in our world the military is an attractive place for people who are inclined to kill, as being a soldier at war makes it legal, but in a world where the military typically isn't allowed to kill, why would such waste their time with it? It should also be noted that a lot goes into training soldiers to be willing to kill (that is, buying off Reluctant Killer), and a society like that probably doesn't invest in doing so. What need would they have for killing machines?

Originally Posted by seasalt

In real warfare, you know that if your side loses, it's very likely you'll be killed anyway. But in this case there is less incentive to take on such a dangerous mission. I'm sure you'd get some macho guys volunteering to do it, but not the whole force.

Most wars aren't existential in nature, at least not like that. When your side loses a war - or indeed in many cases when you just lose a battle - you instead surrender, are made a POW, and if the war is over you'll eventually wind up released unless they suspect you of warcrimes, in which case you'll be tried for such (if the war isn't over, they may keep you there until it's over - although in the far past, it was common to release captured soldiers once they made a vow not to fight any more in the war). Or unless your captors are fond of committing warcrimes themselves, in which case the war probably is existential in nature.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by seasalt

Combat hardsuits make electrolasers, sleep gas, and blinding lasers useless.
n.

This would be where you use a sniper trained to aim for the leg.

If we're talking TL9 Combat Hardsuits that's only DR 30 and you don't even need AP ammo for the 15mm rifle. For the limbs that is. The 15mm won't penetrate the DR 50 Torso without AP.

You could even go for a "minor" penetration on the limbs with the 10mm Storm rifle. That's 9DP+ and 1.5 pts penetrates the DR 30 limb armor and then the P+ modifier increases that to 2 pts. That's not disabling (much less "maiming") but it would make them vulnerable to Sleep Gas again.

You could even go down to 6mm if you used APDS. That'd change 6mm damage to 6D+6(2)P- putting 27 pts against what's effectively a DR25 Torso. So 2 pts get through but are then halved by the P-. So only 1 pt of damage but the armor isn't Sealed any more.

Don't use APEP. You might kill someone.

Also note that heavy armor is somewhat morally dubious as it might defeat defensive weapons during an assault.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by seasalt

I imagine that in a conflict with serious stakes, a lot of the soldiers (and indeed, commanders) actually do want to kill whoever they're fighting against - it's just that the majority population, nationally and globally, doesn't accept such measures.

Eh, soldiers often aren't super invested in killing the enemy even in real world wars; highest priorities tend towards "make them stop shooting at me" and "take the objective".

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by seasalt

So one concept a friend of mine came up with was a twist on a traditional sci-fi military campaign, in that it takes place in a setting where the value of human lives is considered very high compared to modern earth, on all sides of the conflict.

To be clear, this isn't an idea of some completely pacifistic utopia. Violence and the use of force per se is not considered inherently wrong. States and other groups still attempt to impose their will upon others by force. Wars and violent crime are far from unheard of. It's just the act of intentionally killing others which is taboo.

And, to clarify further, this isn't a setting where the taboo on killing is absolute or taken to absurd degrees. In any kind of military operation, it's inevitable that there will be a few deaths due to accidents, even if there isn't any combat at all. A single death in combat isn't considered grounds for calling off an entire war or an immediate ceasefire. The military forces involved and the societies behind them still have a concept of "acceptable losses", it's just that...
1) that number is much lower than ours, to the degree that KIA numbers hitting the triple digits will quickly produce pressure for peace talks, and
2) the lives of the enemy are not considered more expendable than the lives of one's own troops.

With that in mind, what kind of weapons and military forces (using the Ultra Tech book as a baseline rather than trying to re-invent the wheel) would a TL 9 society use? First, a few more ground rules on how warfare is viewed in such a setting:

• Intentionally sending one's own soldiers to take actions that are certain or very likely to result in their deaths places moral culpability on you, their commander, not on the enemy. You can't order your men to throw their bodies in the paths of the enemy's vehicles or anything of the sort - doing so would seen as murder of your own soldiers.
• Tricking the enemy into killing your own soldiers by disguising them as robots or mixing them in among unpiloted vehicles without clearly marking them is likewise considered to be murderous disregard for the lives of one's own troops.
• Causing permanent or debilitating injuries intentionally is, although still more acceptable than killing, considered to be a last resort which should only be done when an enemy can't be neutralized in any other way.
• Destruction of civilian property is also seen as a crime, BUT is acceptable if it is absolutely militarily necessary. Attacking a building being used as a fighting position or a factory producing weapons would be acceptable, destroying enemy power stations or food supplies would not be.

Of course, this leaves a MASSIVE amount of grey areas, and navigating those grey areas would be a major part of any strategy. Is placing your human soldiers too close to a robotic tank that might produce shrapnel if it's blown up criminal disregard for their lives? Sure, the enemy shouldn't shoot it with an ATGM if there are infantry standing next to it, but the tank has a higher profile; what if they other side didn't see your guys standing there? Maybe there's a less hazardous alternative to knocking out such tanks - but what if it's ineffective? What if risking a few lives is the difference between freedom and subjugation and exploitation?
<snip>

To my mind, this is the central problem with your thesis. You’re attempting to nerf lethal warfare to fit your premise of non-lethal warfare, rather than trying to determine what constitutes non-lethal warfare.

Some of your ground rules and their inferred consequences haven’t been thought through.
So, I’m going to bring up some of the problems with your premises and re-write the premises as necessary to make them more workable.

Approaching this in a somewhat backwards manner, far from there a being MASSIVE amount of grey areas, almost any workable form of non-lethal warfare, by the very nature of it being non-lethal, can, at best, have only a very few grey areas, and those should be edge cases, not primary applications.

It is misspeaking to call any violations crimes in the usual sense of the word crime. They may be crimes under the relevant national (municipal) law, but their status and enforcement lays in international law, i.e., these are less “criminal behaviour” and more “crimes against humanity.” As such, they are punishable by any competent authority, not just the belligerents and they are punishable by the authorities of the perpetrator’s own side. In theory, at least, if the punishment for a violation is death, and the commander-in-chief orders the violation, the commander-in-chief will not only be tried by his own side, if they should catch him first, but they will find him guilty and they will sentence him to death and he knows that they will.

The first, and least obtrusive, change in strategy results from the premise that one cannot just throw away the lives of one’s men. No operation will be undertaken and no battle offered, unless an objective assessment of the plan shows, at the barest of minimums, a 50% chance of success, and it’s at least arguably that the threshold might be closer to 66% than 50% to approve any plan. It also follows that the commander of the opposing force should see this and refuse to engage, possibly hunkering down and waiting it out or, more probably, retreating. Likewise, there won’t be any “stop the enemy at all costs, fight to the last man” orders in such warfare. If you are obviously going to lose, you retreat if possible, and surrender if there is no retreat available.

In keeping with that, surrendering enemies may not be executed as inconvenient baggage, they must be taken prisoner and placed in POW camps that are secure enough to ensure the prisoners safety and well-being.

As for not maiming the enemy, this can be taken as simply extending current ideas on the matter to new weaponry. For example, there are already conventions in place that forbid deliberating trying to blind an enemy with a laser rangefinder. As another example, I can remember spending an afternoon sanding the rust off of razorwire because “It’s intended to deter the enemy from trying to pass through it by cutting and holding him. That’s not an excuse to give him tetanus or some other infection!”

Strategically important targets, such as war munitions factories, if they are to be targets for operations at all, are required by convention to:
1) be located at a distance sufficient that a force from its own side adequate to take it (at least 66% likely to succeed) will not (again 66% chance) damage any non-strategic locations where humans are likely to be present.
2) may not be dual-purpose during the period of belligerency. It’s fine if your tank factory is also capable of making cars for the civilian market, but it can’t be producing any civilian cars while a war is going on.
3) all employees of such a factory are deemed combatants within the rules of warfare, and given that, may actually be enrolled as members of their nation’s military and therefore be armed and permitted to resist.

A more useful idea in approaching the concept of acceptable losses being some number in the hundreds but less than a thousand before the public begins to protest in a way and to a degree that will force their nation to seek peace talks is to suggest that communications are such that any war, no matter how small or how far away, is at TL9 always going to be a “war fought in the living room at dinner time” and as such, no nation can afford to have its troops subject to the usual carnage of war for very long before there is a public outcry to “turn the rascals out.” Consequently, politicians have a vested interest in only prosecuting wars which they can win quickly and cleanly.

Rather than saying that the lives of enemy soldiers are valued as highly, or almost as highly, as our own, let us instead posit two things. First, the opposing nation, unless there is a huge gap in capability, is subject to the same constraints of public opinion from its public, i.e., they won’t tolerate a loss of a thousand casualties, either. Second, let us suppose that there is little appetite foe a long occupation of an enemy, if a resistance exists. If the resistance is achieving comparable casualties to their own in actions, it engenders a “They’re just as good as us. They’re dangerous.” Opinion in your public. If the resistance is taking heavy casualties just to inflict minor casualties on you, the public isn’t on board because “now I just feel like a bully. There’s no fun in this.”

A low appetite for casualties suggests a few things. First, most battlefield deaths are gruesome in result, even if clean in execution. For example, a position taking artillery fire looks like a clean death for the defenders, but coffins sealed because they only contain bits and pieces that were picked up and collected afterward say otherwise to the mourners. Second, most engagements tend to be lop-sided, in that the loser isn’t likely to have survivors on his side.
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[Curmudgeon]

Possibly of greater importance, if there is little appetite for casualties, there is little need for large armed forces. If you aren’t going to take more than a few hundred casualties before you quit, a military of five to ten thousand is plenty and anything more than that is probably a waste of money and resources. If your military is limited to that small a number, the objective in any war is likely to be very limited. Something on the order of a minor border adjustment that might move one or two miles of the border by as much as a mile from its current position.

There is an argument that you might still have a large national military, but it would be widely dispersed. Thing of say five hundred forward bases world-wide with each base able to field the equivalent of a division (about five thousand men) with maybe another five thousand personnel comprising naval, air and other military assets.

Against that argument, there is the problem that it will take a while for the public to get over the last “unacceptable losses” before you can engage in a new conflict that might create more unacceptable losses. I would suggest that the probable timespan for “getting over” the losses would be something on the order of twenty years, a generation, possibly half that time, ten years, but its unlikely to be less. Casualty fatigue might set in even if there are no “unacceptable losses” in a nation that goes to war after war after war. I’d suggest that the public would force their government to stop “having all these wars” once the cumulative casualties from successful wars reach two or three times the number of “unacceptable losses” on the grounds that the public will tolerate smaller losses without immediately realizing how many of their own are dying, but they will eventually notice that they’re “being bled white in a death of a thousand cuts.”

So, my take would be that the weaponry ought to be the most lethal things you can find for TH9. Ideally, you want weaponry whose effects, if you think about them graphically, leave you thinking, “Ew! Almost any thing else would be a better way to go than that!.” The constraints will be on what are acceptable tactics/targets*, and agreements between nations to, as History Oversimplified puts it “not be jerks.”

* For example, assassination by drone, even for military targets, is likely to fall under the “crimes against humanity” umbrella in this world.

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